Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Is the Wall of Separation of Church and State Permeable?

If you hear the word “wall” do you think of it as a solid
separation or something you can go through?Recently, an editor (and owner) of a local newspaper claimed that
Americans are taking this “wall of separation” thing too far.I have to wonder what he thinks a wall is! And how can keeping church and state separate be
taken too far?

The editor talked about how he thought prayer was appropriate for government
meetings and that he would always say “In Jesus name we pray, Amen” even when
he was asked to be more inclusive.I
doubt he would agree if meetings he attended always had a Muslim prayer.Anyway, here is the response I wrote in the
Letter to the Editor section.I have to
commend him for printing what I wrote without editing (even though he did not
correct one mistake I made) (I corrected the error in the text below).In another
local paper, that editor takes out “anything offensive” and not much is left of
any of my carefully worded articles! This is one reason I prefer writing in this tiny paper!

In case you cannot see the article above, here it is:

RESPONSE:

"It is my opinion that government meetings and any secular meetings
should not open with a prayer, as prayers are not secular; and some of us see
them as a waste of time.What if it
became a rule to open meetings with a hard rock song?Some people would love that idea, but for
those who do not like hard rock, they would have to sit through it at the start
of every meeting, which would take a few minutes of the meeting for something
that not everyone appreciates.It is
exactly the same with sitting through a prayer.

By the way, “nothing fails like prayer.” It does not heal amputees, it
does not make sick people well, it does not save people from typhoons or
tornadoes, and prayer has not passed any studies or tests as being valid.

Why do you even want a prayer before council meetings?Will everyone act barbarically without the
prayer?Will they vote differently than
if someone gave a prayer first?If you
feel that people need a prayer in order to conduct a meeting, then it does not
say much for Christians absorbing or putting into practice the morals they have
been taught their entire lives.

It also reinforces the fact that atheists as a group are much more
moralistic than Christians.Perhaps it
would be wiser to listen to a short speech by an atheist before the meeting, as
atheists as a group are more educated and it actually could be beneficial.Statistically, atheists have fewer divorces,
fewer out-of-wedlock pregnancies, fewer abortions and they are among the least
likely to be in jail. Perhaps atheists should garner a bit more respect than
the clergy who are either deluded or putting one over on the congregation for
the sake of revenue.

This is not a Christian nation.If a Christian nation were the goal of the founders, that concept
would appear in the Constitution.It
does not.Before, during and after the
writing of the Constitution, there were people just like you, pushing to have
religion added and criticizing the founding fathers’ decisions.There was even an amendment proposed to the
preamble (that Jefferson said had already been
mutilated) to add “Jesus Christ” to it.That was turned down.

I find it amusing that you cannot say a prayer to God without
mentioning Jesus for the sake of all the various people who may be
listening.That does not sound caring,
kind or considerate.You said that “praying
to the Father through Jesus” gives validity to the prayer.Apparently, you feel that only prayers with
the name of Jesus are valid.Prayers of
all other religions, therefore, are not valid; prayers to God are not valid.Well, as I said before, prayers are not
valid.

There would be a simple solution to the prayer situation and you would
not have to worry about what name is invoked.You can pray at home, at church, or even have those from the meeting who
want to pray in a group meet at your house before the meeting or after the
meeting, and have a prayer for that “group effect.”However, I am sure that the
suggestion to pray before one attends a meeting has been brought up before and
I am sure Christians will continue to ignore the suggestion, because they would
rather inflict their Christian beliefs on everyone."

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About Me

I became an atheist thanks to YouTube! For years I hovered between having a God, being "spiritual" and being agnostic - in fact, most of my life. There was only a short period of time when I was a Jesus Freak along with my brother, but I did not fit in with his group. I attended a religious college for two years and felt like the "odd woman out" there as well. One day on the main page of AOL there was a picture of Kirk Cameron and another picture of a pretty young blond woman with curly long hair and a cute little chin. They said she got more "hits" on YouTube than Kirk did! Of course, it was Zomgitscriss! I watched her video and thought, "You know, I think like she does, but she is a lot smarter than I am!" I watched more of her videos, and she said it was just a hop, skip and jump from agnosticism to atheism. I thought, "Oh, I could never be an atheist - it's such a harsh word!" I decided to look at her favorites and saw a big guy with long hair who looked like he belonged in a motorcycle gang. I smirked and thought, "This will be good - let's see what he has to say," thinking he had to sound dumb. It turned out to be Aron Ra, and I was treated to video after video about evolution, taxonomy and phylogeny - subjects I knew nothing about! What an education! One day, I clicked on Pangeaprogress' videos. I saw his beautiful nature videos of Africa. Suddenly, a pack of lions surrounded an antelope and started eating her, slowly, starting at the hips and wherever they could bite. I was totally shocked. I had been overprotected a good share of my life, and my mother always told me that animals "always went right for the neck and the death was over in an instant." Well, it wasn't. From that moment on, I was an atheist. No God could sit by and watch such cruelty and pain and suffering and allow it to happen. No excuses. This is how YouTube converted me, and my eyes have been opened to so many new ideas thanks to the Internet!